The Times is reporting that Bin Laden’s former spokesperson, Adel Abdel Bary, is about to be released from the United States, after serving 21 years in jail after being convicted for his part in the terror attacks on US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. 224 people were killed in these attacks and over 5,000 people were injured in the 1998 bombings that shook East Africa and spiralled it into becoming a theatre of operations for Islamist terrorists in the region.

Bary’s son, Abdel-Majed Abdel, was recently arrested in Spain after travelling to Syria to fight for the so-called Islamic State, and posing with the severed head of a soldier in the Assad regime. Abdel was detained with two other men in Almeria and Spanish police subsequently tweeted out that he was “one of Europe’s most wanted Daesh foreign terrorist fighters”.

Así detuvimos en #Almería a uno de los Foreign Terrorist Fighters de DAESH más buscados de #Europa. De nacionalidad egipcia, habría entrado ilegalmente en España y se ocultaba en un piso de alquiler. También se arrestó a otras dos personas que lo acompañaban pic.twitter.com/14f2v2brEg

— Policía Nacional (@policia) April 21, 2020

Bary’s imminent release and return means that he cannot be placed under Terrorist Prevention and Investigation Measures (TPIMs) and he is being released on compassionate grounds, given that he is 60 years of age, suffers from asthma and is overweight.

Bary sought and was granted asylum in 1990 after he claimed that he was tortured by the Mubarak regime at the time. Faith Matters has long stated that the root of the Islamist extremist problem that has blighted our nation came about because there was little understanding of Islamist extremist activists, groups and networks in the late 1980’s and 1990’s. This meant that many Islamist extremist leaders who were being persecuted by regimes such as those of Mubarak and Gaddafi, entered into the U.K. They entered like wolves into a sheep pen, further poisoning the minds of many young men and turning them against their own country.

Such individuals have fanned the flames of extremism in our country and internationally and whilst Bary has served his sentence in the US, we must ensure that his activities are monitored once he enters the U.K.

However, public patience with individuals convicted of terrorist related offences is running out and many will be asking why we cannot push the US to ensure that he serves out his full sentence. Sadly, the reality is that such an argument will go nowhere as US law authorities have deemed him eligible for release.

It therefore falls upon the Home Secretary to demonstrate the measures that the Home Office will put in place for Bary and future releases like his. Whilst he may have served out the majority of his 25 year sentence, there is no way that this former spokesperson for the one time most wanted terrorist in the world, can lead a life without observation from our security services. It is people like Bary who created the monster of Islamist extremism. That stain remains with them forever, even when they look like a grandad with little desire to harm anyone.